Is Candy AI Free? Here’s Exactly What It Costs — From Someone Who Pays

By Tim — last verified July 23, 2026

(affiliate link — see disclosure)

I’ve been paying for Candy AI out of my own pocket since June 2026. So this isn’t a guess from the outside — I’ve been through the checkout, watched the tokens disappear, and read the fine print that most reviews never open. If your question is “can I use Candy AI for free, and if not, what am I really paying?”, this is the whole answer.

Is Candy AI free? What the free plan actually gives you

Yes, there’s a free plan. No, it is not a free trial. Those are different things, and the difference is the whole point of this section.

Here’s what the free plan includes, straight from Candy AI’s own terms and help documentation (verified July 20, 2026):

• Up to 5 messages to an AI companion — total, across all characters, not 5 per character
• 1 custom AI character you can create
• 1 image generation

That’s it. Five messages is roughly one short conversation before the wall goes up.

I want to be precise here because nobody else is: this is enough to see the art style and get a feel for how the chat writes, and nothing more. It is a shop window, not a test drive. If a page tells you that you can “use Candy AI free,” this is what that actually means.

(One honest note: the exact free-plan limits are set by Candy and have shifted before, so if you’re reading this months later, check the current signup screen. The numbers above are what their own terms stated on July 20, 2026.)

Candy AI pricing: the real numbers

Once the free sample runs out, here’s what you actually pay. These are the current plans from Candy AI’s subscription page, checked in the English (dollar-billed) interface on July 23, 2026:

Plan	Monthly price	You’re billed	Discount
1 month	$13.99/mo	$13.99 each month	—
3 months	$8.99/mo	$26.97 up front	35% off
12 months	$3.99/mo	$47.88 up front	70% off (“Best Value”)

Two things people miss when they see “$3.99”:

• That $3.99 is billed annually. You are not paying $3.99 next month — you’re paying $47.88 once, today, for twelve months. It’s a good deal if you already know you want a year of this. It is a full year’s commitment if you don’t.
• Every plan unlocks the same core product. The price difference is purely about how long you commit, not about features. (The one exception — “Premium Plus” — gets its own section below.)

For a full breakdown of whether the product itself is worth subscribing to, I go feature-by-feature in my main Candy AI review. This article is strictly about the money.

The token system: what actually drains your balance

This is the part that turns “$3.99/month” into a much blurrier number, and it’s where most pricing articles wave their hands. Let me be concrete.

Every paid plan includes 100 tokens per month (their plan screen says exactly that). Crucially:

• Text chat is unlimited and costs zero tokens. If all you want is to talk, your 100 tokens are irrelevant. This is the genuinely fair part of the model.
• Voice messages are all but free. A voice message costs just 0.2 tokens — that’s around 500 of them on a single month’s 100-token allowance, so in practice it feels free. The exception is a live voice call, which runs 3 tokens per minute and does add up on a long one.
• Tokens are for the heavier stuff — images, video, voice calls, and creating extra characters. Once they’re gone, you either wait for next month’s 100 or buy more.

Here’s what each action costs, verified in-app on my own Premium account (July 23, 2026):

Action	Token cost
Generate an image (V1 engine)	2 tokens
Generate an image (V2 engine)	4 tokens
Generate a 5-second video	12 tokens
Generate a 10-second video	20 tokens
Voice message	0.2 tokens
Voice call	3 tokens / minute
Create a 2nd AI character	10 tokens (your 1st is free)

So your monthly 100 tokens is about 25 images on the newer V2 engine (or 50 on V1), or a handful of short videos, or hundreds of voice messages — and then you’re done for the month. Tokens don’t roll over into cash, can’t be refunded, and can’t be transferred (their terms are explicit on that).

If you generate a lot of images or video, you’ll run out and reach for a token top-up pack. Here’s what those actually cost, straight from the in-app “Buy Tokens” screen (verified July 23, 2026):

Token pack	Price	Bonus	Cost per token
100 tokens	$9.99	—	~$0.10
350 tokens	$34.99	—	~$0.10
550 tokens	$49.99	+10%	~$0.09
1,150 tokens	$99.99	+15%	~$0.087
2,400 tokens	$199.99	+20%	~$0.083
3,750 tokens	$299.99	+25%	~$0.08

The pattern is simple: buy small and it’s about $0.10 per token; buy big and it drops to about $0.08. In plain terms, a V2 image (4 tokens) is roughly 40 cents, a 10-second video (20 tokens) about $2. (Premium Plus subscribers get an extra +10% on every pack — more on that tier below.)

What a real month actually costs

Let me put the pieces together into the number you actually want, in three honest scenarios:

• The texter. You subscribe for unlimited chat and rarely generate media. Your 100 free tokens cover the occasional picture. Real cost = the plan price, i.e. as low as $3.99/mo on the annual plan, or $13.99 month-to-month. This is Candy at its most fairly priced.
• The casual media user. You want a few images a week and the odd video. You’ll dip into your 100 tokens fast but might just about live within them, topping up with a $9.99 (100-token) pack now and then. Real cost ≈ plan price + maybe $10 in some months.
• The heavy media user. Daily images, regular videos. 100 tokens won’t last the first week, so you’re buying the $34.99 (350) or $49.99 (550) pack most months. Real cost = plan price + $35–$50/month in tokens, and this is where the “$3.99” headline stops meaning anything.

The honest takeaway: budget the plan price as your floor, not your ceiling. If media generation is why you’re here, the token packs — $9.99 for 100 up to $299.99 for 3,750 — are your true recurring cost, not the subscription.

Premium Plus: the plan Candy won’t price

Here’s the oddest thing I found. On the plan screen there’s a tab for “Premium Plus” — a tier above the standard Premium plan.

Compared side-by-side with standard Premium, here’s what the extra money buys (from Candy’s own comparison table):

	Premium	Premium Plus
Monthly tokens	100	230
Early access to new characters	✗	✓
+10% tokens on every purchase, forever	✗	✓
Cloned chats	2	5

(Both tiers include unlimited text, image generation, live action and audio, and creating your own characters.)

And the price? Here’s the interesting part: Candy’s public pricing page doesn’t show Premium Plus at all — you only see it once you’re logged in and go to upgrade. That’s a strange way to sell a tier, but here are the actual numbers from inside the app (verified July 23, 2026):

Plan	Price	Billed
1 month	$22.38/mo	monthly
3 months	$14.38/mo	$43.14 up front (36% off)
12 months	$6.38/mo	$76.56 up front (71% off, “Best Value”)

So Premium Plus roughly doubles the standard price for 2.3× the tokens plus the perks. Worth it only if you’re a heavy image or video user who’d otherwise buy token packs anyway — for everyone else, standard Premium plus the occasional top-up is cheaper.

The “7-day trial” contradiction

You’ll see it claimed a lot: “Candy AI has a 7-day free trial.” Some of that comes from Candy’s own marketing — the homepage has literally said the “7-day trial gives you full access to what Candy AI has to offer.”

Here’s the problem: their own Terms of Service contain no trial clause at all, the free plan is defined as those 5 messages, and the subscription page has no $0 option anywhere in the checkout flow. I went looking specifically for a trial, on more than one day. It isn’t there.

So which is it? I’m not going to resolve a contradiction that Candy itself hasn’t — I’m going to show it to you plainly: the marketing says “trial,” the terms and the actual signup say “no trial, just a 5-message free plan.” Plan your money around the terms, not the ad copy. (This matches what I found writing my safety review, where I couldn’t find a working free trial either.)

Annual vs monthly — and is the 70% discount real?

The annual plan’s “70% off” is the number every ad quotes. Two things are worth knowing before you treat it as a limited-time steal:

• The discount math doesn’t quite add up, so trust the dollar figure, not the percentage. 70% off $13.99 should be $4.20, but the screen shows $3.99. 35% off should be $9.09, but it shows $8.99. The dollar amounts are what you actually pay — don’t re-derive them from the percentages.
• I’ve never seen the “70% off” expire. There’s no countdown timer, and I checked the plan screen on two different days (July 17 and July 23, 2026) — identical 70% off both times. That strongly suggests $3.99/mo (annual) is just the standing annual price, and $13.99 is the anchor it’s discounted against — not a flash sale you’ll miss. If you ever see a genuine countdown, treat it as new.

Bottom line on commitment: month-to-month at $13.99 is the low-risk way to try it. The annual $47.88 is the cheapest per month, but it’s a full year paid today. Pick based on how sure you already are — not on a discount clock that may not actually be ticking.

How to pay — and what shows up on your statement

A few practical money questions this article gets, answered from the official payment info (verified July 20, 2026):

• Accepted payment methods: Visa and Mastercard, plus cryptocurrency (BTC, ETH, USDC, LTC). Candy’s help material also lists Apple Pay, Google Pay, and bank transfer.
• Does Candy AI accept gift cards? Not as a listed method. The supported options are the cards, crypto and wallet options above — I found no official mention of prepaid gift cards. If discretion is your reason for asking, the better lever is the billing descriptor below, or paying in crypto.
• What shows on your bank statement: “EverAI” — not “Candy AI.” That’s the registered operating company (EverAI Limited, Malta, Nr. C107181), and it’s what appears on the charge. For most people that discretion is a feature; just don’t forget what it is a month later and panic-file a chargeback.

I go deeper on the company, the billing descriptor and privacy in my Is Candy AI Safe? review.

Refunds, auto-renewal, and cancelling

The least glamorous part of any subscription, and the part almost no Candy review covers — so here it is from the actual terms (verified July 20, 2026):

• Auto-renewal: every plan renews automatically at the end of its term (monthly, quarterly or yearly). Standard, but it means an annual plan quietly re-bills $47.88 a year later unless you cancel.
• Cancelling: self-service — Settings → Unsubscribe. You keep access until the end of the period you already paid for.
• Refunds: Candy’s terms allow a refund within 24 hours of payment. Their help center adds a condition the terms don’t mention — that you’ve used 20 tokens or fewer. So “I subscribed by accident an hour ago” is refundable; “I’ve had it three weeks” is not.
• EU/UK buyers: you get a stronger 14-day withdrawal right on your first purchase, on top of the above. Consumer law, not Candy being generous — but useful to know.

If you’re on the annual plan, set a reminder before the renewal date. A yearly charge is easy to forget until it lands. (A full click-by-click cancellation walkthrough with screenshots is coming as a separate guide.)

Is Candy AI worth the money?

Here’s my honest verdict, purely on cost:

Candy AI is fairly priced for what most people actually do with it — talk. Unlimited text chat with no token drain, at $3.99–$13.99/month depending on commitment, is a reasonable deal. If you’re a texter, ignore the token noise and pick the plan length that matches how sure you are.

It gets murkier the more media you want. The token economy means image- and video-heavy users pay meaningfully more than the headline, via top-up packs — and a Premium Plus tier you can’t price until you’re logged in doesn’t help. That’s the honest knock on an otherwise straightforward product.

Who should skip it: anyone under 18 (it’s an adult product), and anyone who can only afford the $3.99 figure and would resent the extra token spend that media features invite. Budget realistically, not optimistically.

I’ve paid for months, my card statement is intact and boringly labelled “EverAI,” and I think the core price is fair. Just go in knowing the difference between the number on the ad and the number on your statement.

(affiliate link — disclosure) Wondering if it’s actually any good, not just affordable? That’s my full hands-on review.

FAQ

Is Candy AI free?

There’s a free plan, but it’s a small sample, not a trial — Candy’s own terms cap it at about 5 messages, 1 custom character and 1 image (verified July 20, 2026). To use it properly you subscribe.

How much does Candy AI cost?

Three plans as of July 2026: $13.99/month monthly, $8.99/month billed as $26.97 quarterly (35% off), or $3.99/month billed as $47.88 annually (70% off). Text chat is unlimited on all of them.

Does Candy AI have a free trial?

No working free trial appears in the actual signup flow, despite marketing that mentions a “7-day trial.” The terms define the free option as a 5-message free plan, with no $0 checkout tier.

Why is my Candy AI more expensive than advertised?

The “$3.99/month” is the annual plan billed once as $47.88. Month-to-month is $13.99. On top of the plan, media actions (images and video) spend tokens, so heavy users pay more via top-up packs. Text chat and voice messages are effectively free.

Does Candy AI accept gift cards?

Not as a listed method (verified July 20, 2026). Supported options are Visa/Mastercard, crypto (BTC, ETH, USDC, LTC), and per Candy’s help material Apple Pay, Google Pay and bank transfer.

Can I get a refund from Candy AI?

Their terms allow a refund within 24 hours of payment; the help center adds that you must have used 20 tokens or fewer. EU and UK buyers also get a 14-day withdrawal right on a first purchase. Cancel any time from Settings → Unsubscribe.